The 2021 James Weldon Johnson Distinguished lecture will feature award-winning historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and African and African American Studies and the chair of the Department of History at Harvard University. The lecture, which is sponsored by Emory’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, will take place via Zoom on April 1 at 4pm. Higginbotham’s talk is titled “History in the Face of Slavery: A Family Portrait.” Register here.
Category / Antiracism
Suh to Speak at Event, “Addressing Anti-Asian Violence in Context and Community”
Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History, will speak this evening along with other members of the Emory community at a virtual event titled “Addressing Anti-Asian Violence in Context and Community.” The conversation will take place from 6-7pm at the following link: https://emory.zoom.us/j/92475166678 (Zoom ID: 924 7516 6678). Read more about the event below:
“In light of recent events, we are offering a student-focused program addressing the surge of anti-Asian violence on both a national and local level. We welcome individuals of Asian descent to join us tomorrow, March 18th, at 6 PM ET for a time of connection to learn more about the wider historical context of anti-Asian violence, meaning-making during this time of pain, and self-care practices we can use to sustain ourselves and our communities. The discussion will be facilitated by Melissa Paa Redwood (Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement), Dr. Chris Suh (Department of History), Dr. Jane Yang (Counseling and Psychological Services), the Venerable Priya Sraman (Office of Spiritual and Religious Life), and Alia Azmat (Counseling and Psychological Services).”
Suddler to Moderate Panel, “Beyond the Games: Black Women & Sports – Past, Present, and Future”
Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, will moderate the upcoming panel, “Beyond the Games: Black Women & Sports – Past, Present, and Future.” The event will feature Renee Montgomery (Executive and Co-owner, The Atlanta Dream), Elisabeth Akinwale (Co-founder of the 13th Flow Performance System), Keiko Price (Emory’s Clyde Partin Sr. Director of Athletics), and Lanita Gregory Campbell (Director of Emory’s Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement). The event, which coincides with Women’s History Month, will take place on Thursday, March 18, at 4:30pm. The Department of History is a sponsor of the event, which is also part of the 2021 Sports History Lecture Series.
Suh’s Work Highlighted in “Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research” Feature
The Office of the Senior Vice President for Research recently featured the work of Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History, in a series on Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research at Emory. Suh’s research centers on race, ethnicity, and inequality, especially the United States’ engagement with the Pacific World and Asian migration to the United States. Read an excerpt from the feature below along with the full piece: “Race, Equity, Resilience, and Social Justice Research at Emory University.”
“When someone tells Chris Suh that history repeats itself, he replies—not necessarily.
“‘The past only repeats itself if you choose to see it that way,’ he says. And it’s the historian’s job to help uncover those surprises or variations in the archival record that challenge conventional assumptions.“
Anderson Comments on GA Senate and House Voting Legislation
Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article in Atlanta Magazine. The piece focuses on the dozen bills currently alive in the Georgia state House and Senate that are focused on voting issues. Opponents critique this legislation as Republican efforts to curb voting rights in the wake of Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential election and for the state’s two senate seats in early 2021. Read an excerpt from the piece quoting Dr. Anderson below along with the full article: “Here’s what’s going on with voting legislation in Georgia and why opponents say it’s clear ‘voter suppression.'”
“But Emory University professor Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, says Republican lawmakers are going on a “bonanza” to deter alleged voter identity theft, despite no proof of voter fraud in recent elections. “They are targeting American citizens and denying them their right to vote,” she says. Anderson, an expert on the country’s history of voter suppression, says that the nature of the bills wasn’t surprising, but it was the sheer volume of bills introduced in Georgia during the current session that has garnered widespread attention, even as other states propose similar legislation.“
Klibanoff Comments on Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act
Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently commented on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act for the Courthouse News Service. Conceived of by New Jersey high school students and signed into law in 2019, the Cold Case legislation directs the National Archives and Record Administration to compile documents related to unsolved cases of the civil rights era. A five-member board designated to review those documents has yet to be appointed. In the article Klibanoff discusses the significance of the legislation, which he sees as opening up productive avenues for solving cold cases and achieving justice for victims and their families. Read an excerpt from the piece below along with the full article: “Empty Board Hampers Effort to Release Records on Civil Rights-Era Killings.”
“Hank Klibanoff, director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Atlanta’s Emory University, said the law will help researchers dig into old documents on these killings ‘without having to jump through three, four, five hoops.‘
“It’s a process Klibanoff knows well: He had to file two different requests, one to the FBI and another to the National Archives, to get information about the killing of Isaiah Nixon, a Black man shot in 1948 for voting in Georgia.
“Klibanoff said the law drafted by the students – known formally as the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018 – could make more of a difference than when the federal government tried to reopen a bunch of the cases a few years ago in the hopes of closing them. In many instances, the government closed the cases when they concluded there was no one left alive to prosecute.
“‘This, you don’t have to have a living perpetrator,’ Klibanoff said. ‘This allows the perpetrators – even if they are deceased – to still face the judgement of history. This allows historians, or families and newspaper reporters, to come in, look at them and write stories about what the record shows happened.‘”
Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project Partners with National Center for Civil and Human Rights to Produce Exhibit about the Victims of 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre
Emory’s Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project will partner with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to produce an exhibit about the more than two dozen Black Atlanta residents murdered in what has become known as the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906. The exhibit will make up part of a three-story expansion to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights funded by a $17 million grant by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, is the director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project. The Blank Family Foundation grant will support the continuation of research by Klibanoff, along with undergraduates in his course the Cold Cases Project, into the Black lives lost to the massacre. Read an excerpt from the Emory News Center feature of the project below along with the full article: “Grant to help Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project uncover Atlanta’s racial history.”
“Who were these people? What did they do, how did they live, how did they die? We know enough from our preliminary research to see the victims were people living on the right side of the law, but they became political pawns, expendable because of their race,” says Klibanoff, a professor of practice in Emory’s Creative Writing program.
“We’ll be seeking to animate their lives to give them the historical justice that was denied them by law enforcement and the judicial system in 1906,” he adds.
Anderson, Goldmon, and Pugh Among Recipients of Mellon Foundation Grant on Reparations Solutions
Emory University is one of the recipients of a $5 million grant awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Solutions and other institutions as part of the Foundation’s Just Futures initiative. The project creates and leverages a national network of scholars working in partnership with community-based organizations to develop racial reparation solutions. Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, AAS department chair, and associated faculty in the history department, will lead a team of scholars that also includes Vanessa Siddle Walker, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Studies, and AAS assistant professors Dr. Janeria Easley and Dr. Jessica Lynn Stewart.
History doctoral students Camille Goldmon and Aleo Pugh will support the team’s work. Goldmon’s dissertation, advised by Dr. Allen E. Tullos and Anderson, is titled “Land Retention Amongst African-American Farmers in the U.S. South.” Pugh’s dissertation, advised by Dr. Walter Rucker, Dr. Jason Ward, and Anderson, is titled “‘Leery of Being Consumed’: Working-Class Black Dissent and the Legacy of Brown.” Read more about the grant below.
The grant’s project, “Crafting Democratic Futures: Situating Colleges and Universities in Community-based Reparations Solutions” will involve community fellows as well as local organizations in a collaborative public history reckoning designed to offer tangible suggestions for community-based racial reparations solutions. The project emerges from the Center for Social Solutions’ focus on slavery and its aftermath, and is informed by three generations of humanistic scholarship and what that scholarship suggests for all seeking just futures. The Center is led by former Emory Provost Earl Lewis.
-“Recent Mellon Foundation Grants Awarded to AAS Faculty,” AAS Newsletter.
Suddler Discusses MLK’s “America’s Chief Moral Dilemma” Speech with Faculty from Across Campus
Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, was one of four Emory faculty members to contribute to a conversation about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech, “America’s Chief Moral Dilemma.” Organized by Emory’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the event included a reading of the speech by January LaVoy, Assistant Professor of Theater Studies, and a conversation with Suddler, Dr. Valerie Babb (Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities in African American Studies and English), and Dr. Dianne Stewart (Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies).
Anderson Analyzes White Supremacist Roots of Trump-Incited Insurrection at U.S. Capitol for NBC News
In a recent article for NBC News, Dr. Carol Anderson analyzed the role of white supremacy in ex-president Donald Trump’s political career and the insurrection he incited at the United States capitol on January 6. Anderson is an expert on public policy, particularly the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality in the United States. Read an excerpt from the NBC News piece below along with the full article: “The Trump-fueled riot shocked America. To some, it was a long time coming.”
“‘This situation, in this moment, for me feels something like the mythical Cassandra,’ said Carol Anderson, author of the book ‘White Rage.’ Anderson was referring to the character in Greek myth cursed with the gift of accurate prophecy that is not believed.
‘”I and many others, we have been hollering Trump is a racist,’ she said. ‘Trump is a dangerous racist who stokes and speaks to those impulses in his most ardent followers. This isn’t economic anxiety that he appeals to, that he speaks to in his voters. It’s white supremacy. And, until this nation really deals with white supremacy and how dangerous we ought to know that it is, there will be another demagogue who eventually rises in his place.'”